you are a body in a boat
on the lake with the shadows
of a million birds over your chest
and you are breathing with them all

and the waves want you
like I want you
and we will both kiss the tips
of your dripping fingers
stretching from your crinkled
hand, like all of Tennessee
in your palm.

oh, how full of fog you are.

you are a body in a boat
on the lake with that shore
covered in rocks, unskipped
the plants unpulled,
roots unslipped.

but as your fingers drip
from body to liquid
the discs of ripples
                     spread
to me on that shore
holding my own
               holy head

so little did we know                          (so little did we know)
those ripples were not our own
but instead
the alternating white/blue
of iris and cornea
of skin and vein
of hand and sky                                  (of iris and cornea
that all go away                                    of skin and vein
that all die                                              of hand and sky)

and one day, we will find
(beneath the shadows cast
by temporary leaves)                        (that all go away
our own bones, buried deep              that all die)
under the roots.

                                                         ­       (our own bones, buried deep
                                                            ­      under the roots)

                                                   *and you are breathing with them all